Knowle Hall Wharf, Grand Union

 We travelled all of 2 3/4 miles today.  We have been having a bit of trouble with our batteries while out and thought we needed new ones.  But we set off yesterday with hopes that it was just that we hadn't really run the engine enough.  Well, yesterday we began with 100% juice and when we stopped we only had 93%.  This morning it had gone down to 79% and would not come up so we stopped at the Stephen Goldsborough boatyard to ask for help.

We are now moored up by their wharf with an electric landline and awaiting a new alternator. 

To be truthful, I was quite happy not to have done the 5 wide Knowle locks today, still quite shattered after yesterday!

Notice, BW are aware that yet another paddle is not working.

More signs of spring, lots of ducks, moorhens and birds in general.  David said he saw at least 2 kingfishers this morning.  That's 3 in 2 days, more than we saw during the whole of last year's cruising.

I walked into Knowle, great bread shop. Well worth the walk.

Talking of ducks.  We have about 5 in Birmingham (but lots and lots of Canada Geese).  So here is a card I made of a couple of ducks.

I actually manipulated the photograph and put the 2 ducks closer together so they look like a couple.  I matted the photo onto black card and then onto orange pearlescent card, this had the corners rounded off and then it was matted onto more black card and the corners were rounded again.

A green card blank was used and I Cuttlebugged some orange pearlescent card and cut it into a wide strip.  This was stuck down the middle of the card blank and the matted photo was stuck towards the bottom of the strip.  An orange silk daisy was stuck to the top right hand corner of the photograph.

Weston by Stone

A late-ish start for us. The Meadford Top Lock had the bottom gates open and the gate paddle on the top lock jammed half up so that the 2 1/2 mile pound from Trentham Lock was low. There was a hire boat in the next lock and he said that all the bottom gates had been left open!! Lucky for him. We met three more boats coming down the locks to Stone and then 4 more at Star Lock - where have they all come from all of a sudden?

There were no moorings in Stone so I did a quick trip into town while David did the lock and then we pressed on.

Another 4 boats going through Aston Lock so we stopped at the next piece of piling and were moored up by 1145.

The weather is still very windy and cold but as you can see from the picture, there was a fantastic sunset. Hope that means a nice day tomorrow.

We could not get to David's nephew's wedding last December so I made this card to send. I used the punched out hearts from the border down the side and rub-on lettering. Unfortunately the pretty white and blue paper behind the star does not show up very well in the photograph.